So what is your opinion? After all, that is what the OP has asked for.
I suggest a re-read of the OP's 1st post:
How can one decide without pro/con input? He is asking for specific incidents of injury and opinions. But seems to me the OP has pretty much answered his own question.
I summarized my opinion of hard bags in my final sentence:

I believe many riders ask opinions to hear what other riders have to say. I'm following four or five ride reports on ADV at the moment. ALL are using hard bags ... and only ONE of these riders has any riding experience beyond a year. The fact is, new riders seem to use the copy cat method of travel and bike prep.

Very few have put in the hard miles on a variety of bikes using various luggage systems to really have an informed opinion. I always consider the source.

When I see guys like Colebatch (read his BAM road report on ADV) and TonyP, Austin Vince, Chris Scot and Ted Simon going with soft bags, that pretty much says it all. If one never goes off pavement then, by all means, hard bags are fine.

The other thing that sways me is a pic Ted magnum posted on another pannier thread. Since I've "been there, done that" I can admit I would not want to repeat riding in that sand carrying all that extra weight. Crashing sucks.



"After this, I swapped to Cortech Softbags for the rest of the jouney and it was BLISS !!! Lightweight, easy to pack, totally waterproof, easy to load/unload and worked as a great buffer when the bike toppled !"